Fake It ‘til You Make It? Hard Pass.
I keep seeing this come up from biz leaders, and each time I literally grimace.
These people aren’t trying to cause you harm! But what they are doing is adding fuel to your Imposter Syndrome.
What is Imposter Syndrome, anyway?
Imposter Syndrome is when you’re seen as an expert, a leader or a well informed person on a subject, and you feel the opposite.
An example would be, let’s say you’re a graphic designer, and have worked for yourself for over 5 years. You’re asked to come to a conference and speak about being a graphic design entrepreneur. You decline the offer because you don’t think you’d be good enough.
Or you accept the offer, and the entire time you’re freaking out because they’ve obviously made a terrible mistake wanting little old, really terrible, bad, awful graphic designer you.
That’s Imposter Syndrome.
Here’s an example: a client that I’m working with got the job she had worked hard to get, and told me that in the interview process, she hadn’t done a very good job.
“…but you got the job, right?” I said.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t very good.”
“… but… you… got… the… job?”
“Oh.”
Fake it
So when people tell you to fake confidence if you don’t have it, all that does is increase your IP. Because instead of doing the work and really owning who you are (i.e. a person who is good enough to be asked to speak at a conference about the very job you’ve been successfully doing for 5+ years), you’re just not committing to yourself. Again.
And you’ve given yourself an excuse to do that. By faking it.
Now. Are we gonna turn your self worth around overnight?
Hell no!
But. The minute you make the choice that you’re going to start owning who you are, embracing your worth, leaning in to your strengths and accepting your flaws, damn if the tides don’t start turning in that very moment.
So let’s take a look at what you should do, instead of faking it.
Shadow Work
Yeah yeah you’re sick of me talking about shadow work, but that lets me know you’re not doing it.
Am I right?
Before we continue here, grab my free Me and My Shadow workbook. It’s a gentle and supportive approach to shadow work, and people love it. (And also release a lot of shit while practising it.) It’s practical, it’s not flaky and it’s vital to overcoming Imposter Syndrome.
How do you know what you’re covering up by faking it if you don’t even know what you’re covering up? Right?
Practise
You just can’t get good at stuff unless you do it. Was I a great coach when I first started out working with students at Queen’s Law in the Moot competitions? No. Was I good? Yeah, I was good. But I definitely didn’t have 10 years of doing this, working with hundreds (possibly thousands at this point) of people, collecting stories, nuances, differences and giving me actual real life situations to practise with.
You can tell your speech to your mirror or your phone camera a thousand times, and it’s going to be different when you’re talking to real people, and you need to actually talk to real people to practise that. So at some point you have to get over your shit (shadow work), and practise (work alongside fear) so that you can …
Build Confidence
If I give you nothing else, know this: confidence is a byproduct. And nobody (not even me!) can teach you how to be confident.
Sucks, right?
I can show you how to get there. I can give you training, homework and help you find opportunities to practise, but you gotta do the work. And that involves embracing your fear and doing the fucking thing anyway.
And that’s hard. It really is - I’m not flippant about that.
But friend… it is worth it. Your life is worth it! And your life will change.
So What Do You Do in the Meantime?
Y’know, instead of faking it? Be okay with not being perfect. Be okay with being vulnerable. Be okay with understanding that you might make mistakes, but that when you do something hard, the next time you do it, you’ll be better. And the next time, better yet. And each time, it gets better.
But it doesn’t get better by you just claiming to have Imposter Syndrome and not doing anything about it. (#harsh #sorrynotsorry)
I see this all the time - using IP as a goddamn excuse to not even try.
And that’s fine. As long as you own it. As long as you know you’re avoiding it. And how do we know that? Shadow work. Let me give you that link again.
If you’re ready to take the next step, I’ve got some free resources that I love to share. One is my free public speaking guide. The other is the tools section of this website.
———————————————————————————
And if you’re ready to embrace your fears and finally break free of all of the shit that has been holding you back, send me an email and let’s talk about what Dynamic Presence, my 3 month 1:1 program can do for you.
Alternately, if you like group programs, Big Voices Masterclass, the 4 week power program, is running this May (and only ever runs 1-2 times/year).
———————————————————————————
Have you ever felt Imposter Syndrome before? My friend sent me a meme recently that said something like “I’m not even good enough to have Imposter Syndrome.” lol. Let me know your experiences with IP in the comments!
——————————
Did you like this blog post? I have so many more! Look below to browse through the recent ones, or just click here to see ‘em all!
